Cookbooks: Peach Cobbler

-Yes, I keep the skins on the peaches. They give the cobbler a beautiful rhodocrosite color.-

So this may sound odd, but I'm not a big cookbook person. Most of my food friends have walls - literally, walls - stuffed full of cookbooks and their floors are dotted with towers of information on such topics as gluten-free baking and how to cure a tagine. Rooms are bordered by imposing culinary skylines pushed against the walls in order to make a path to the kitchen.

To me it's like a head packed to the brim with too many thoughts. No way to give them all enough attention or sort them all properly. And like thoughts, some are lost never to be seen again until one day you seem to trip over it out of the blue (probably when moving). Others are gems that you treasure and invest your time into while others are inane and you wonder how on earth this awkward tome came to be.

I ask these friends if they use all of these cookbooks. These literally hundreds - and for one, thousands - of tomes. Do you use them all? Really?

The answer is usually yes. Often followed by the modifier, "Eventually..."

Dot. Dot. Dot.

-I'm not sure I always believe them.-

To-Do

To-Do List

-Wrap gifts. If I learned anything from working at Borders Books (you know, when it was existing and solvent) it was how to wrap better than those biddies at Macy’s during the holidays. Fold and tape, bitches. It’s something I actually enjoy doing.

-Write thank you cards. I already have a head start on this and have some specially monogrammed stationary for it. I have very posh handwriting (read: loopy and illegible) that looks smashing. The written letter is a lost art. People also love to get an actual hand written note as opposed to a text or e-mail. Their astonishment is both brilliant and a bit worrisome as this simple courtesy is apparently well in the ground.

-Let suit breath. It’s linen and I detest ironing above all other chores.

-Collect ice chest for ice. The wedding location is about 30+ minutes from the nearest convenience store so plan well ahead. It’ll be a hot August night and no one likes warm champagne. Although with this group at least I know no one will turn it down.

-Clean flask and fill with gin. It will be hidden in my boot. I’m a born and raised WASP. It’s what we do for all weddings, birthdays, social events, Tuesdays, breakfasts, etc.

Five Things That Confuse Me: White Sangria

-Because a good bitching session is in order.-

Reality Cooking Competition Shows 

I don’t watch a lot of television. Mainly, it causes me to lose hope in humanity. If there’s a God and he’s judging us based on how we entertain ourselves then all he has to do is catch a rerun of Toddlers and Tiaras before he ends it all for us with a meteor and starts over. I admit that I watch True Blood, The Legend of Korra, and Downton Abbey. I’ve also a penchant for watching the Real Housewives once in a blue moon because it helps me stop and say, “Garrett, you know what? You do have your shit together!” before I turn off my brain and drool on the couch for fifty minutes while a loud Italian woman banshees at her cousin.

But cooking competitions. Why? What is the fascination with people doing what you (supposedly) do every day except they might get cash while you only get dishes? Watching a traditional cooking show you can learn something, like how to hide the fact you flipped on omelets on the counter or how to whiz together hummus.

On a cooking competition show you’re watching people be bitches – sure – like every other reality show. But at the end there are composed plates of food! Styled! Haute! (Well, maybe.) Seen before in your copy of the French Laundry cookbook, but with far less talent and forethought. You can’t taste it. You can’t smell it. You barely get to look at it.

However, the judges will spend 10 minutes telling you how great it is, grinning it up that the shmucks at home aren’t here to try this god damn epic filet of salmon with blueberry-lavender reduction. It’s a culinary cock tease.